"
(The ship's colors flew up to the fore, and the Union Jack to the mizzen
peak.) "Now lads, I mean to fight this ship while a plank of her
(stamping on the deck) swims beneath my foot and--WHAT DO YOU SAY?"
The reply was a fierce "hurrah!" from a hundred throats, so loud, so
deep, so full of volume, it made the ship vibrate, and rang in the
creeping-on pirate's ears. Fierce, but cunning, he saw mischief in those
shortened sails, and that Union Jack, the terror of his tribe, rising to
a British cheer; he lowered his mainsail, and crawled up on the weather
quarter. Arrived within a cable's length, he double reefed his foresail
to reduce his rate of sailing nearly to that of the ship; and the next
moment a tongue of flame, and then a gash of smoke, issued from his lee
bow, and the ball flew screaming like a seagull over the _Agra's_ mizzen
top. He then put his helm up, and fired his other bow-chaser, and sent
the shot hissing and skipping on the water past the ship. This prologue
made the novices wince. Bayliss wanted to reply with a carronade; but
Dodd forbade him sternly, saying, "If we keep him aloof we are done for."
The pirate drew nearer, and fired both guns in succession, hulled the
_Agra_ amidships, and sent an eighteen pound ball through her foresail.
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